What another would have done as well as you, do not do it. What another would have said as well as you, do not say it; what another would have written as well, do not write it. Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself — and thus make yourself indispensable.

Les Nourritures Terrestres (1897), Envoi

True kindness presupposes the faculty of imagining as one’s own the suffering and joys of others.

Portraits and Aphorisms (1903), Pretexts

Le péché, c'est ce qui obscurcit l'âme.

Sin is whatever obscures the soul.

La Symphonie Pastorale (1919)

There are many things that seem impossible only so long as one does not attempt them.

The sole art that suits me is that which, rising from unrest, tends toward serenity.

Man is more interesting than men. God made him and not them in his image. Each one is more precious than all.

Literature and Ethics, entry for 1901

The abominable effort to take one’s sins with one to paradise.

Detached Pages, entry for 1913

No theory is good unless it permits, not rest, but the greatest work. No theory is good except on condition that one use it to go on beyond.

Detached Pages, entry for 1913

The most important things to say are those which often I did not think necessary for me to say — because they were too obvious.

Entry for August 23, 1926

Old hands soil, it seems, whatever they caress, but they too have their beauty when they are joined in prayer. Young hands were made for caresses and the sheathing of love. It is a pity to make them join too soon.

Entry for January 21, 1929

The sole art that suits me is that which, rising from unrest, tends toward serenity.

In my present insistence on high standards you will see that there is less self-indulgence than resolve and application. I do not let the Christian monopolize the ideal of perfection. I have my own virtue, which I am constantly cultivating and refining by teaching myself not to tolerate in me or my surroundings anything but the exquisite.

Maurice in “Characters,” p. 298

Pay attention only to the form; emotion will come spontaneously to inhabit it. A perfect dwelling always finds an inhabitant. The artist’s business is to build the dwelling; as for the inhabitant, it is up to the reader to provide him.

“Characters,” p. 299

Generally among intelligent people are found nothing but paralytics and among men of action nothing but fools.

“Characters,” p. 304

It seems to me that had I not known Dostoevsky or Nietzsche or Freud or X or Z, I should have thought just as I did, and that I found in them rather an authorization than an awakening. Above all, they taught me to cease doubting, to cease fearing my thoughts, and to let those thoughts lead me to those lands that were not uninhabitable because after all I found them already there.

“Characters,” p. 306

The artist who is after success lets himself be influenced by the public. Generally such an artist contributes nothing new, for the public acclaims only what it already knows, what it recognizes.

“Characters,” p. 306

O my dearest and most lovable thought, why should I try further to legitimize your birth?

“Characters,” p. 310

Most often people seek in life occasions for persisting in their opinions rather than for educating themselves.

“An Unprejudiced Mind,” p. 311

True intelligence very readily conceives of an intelligence superior to its own; and this is why truly intelligent men are modest.

“An Unprejudiced Mind,” pp. 311-312

Often the best in us springs from the worst in us.

“An Unprejudiced Mind,” p. 315

There is no feeling so simple that it is not immediately complicated and distorted by introspection.

“An Unprejudiced Mind,” p. 317

The only really Christian art is that which, like St. Francis, does not fear being wedded to poverty. This rises far above art-as-ornament.

“An Unprejudiced Mind,” p. 317

At times it seems to me that I am living my life backwards, and that at the approach of old age my real youth will begin. My soul was born covered with wrinkles—wrinkles my ancestors and parents most assiduously put there and that I had the greatest trouble removing.

“An Unprejudiced Mind,” pp. 319-320

The finest virtues can become deformed with age. The precise mind becomes finicky; the thrifty man, miserly; the cautious man, timorous; the man of imagination, fanciful. Even perseverance ends up in a sort of stupidity. Just as, on the other hand, being too willing to understand too many opinions, too diverse ways of seeing, constancy is lost and the mind goes astray in a restless fickleness.

“An Unprejudiced Mind,” p. 324

We call “happiness” a certain set of circumstances that makes joy possible. But we call joy that state of mind and emotions that needs nothing to feel happy.

“An Unprejudiced Mind,” p. 326

When intelligent people pride themselves on not understanding, it is quite natural they should succeed better than fools.

“An Unprejudiced Mind,” p. 346

When people felt they had a right to seek out Christ before the torment, and in the fullness of his joy—it was too late; the cross had overcome Christ himself; it was Christ crucified that people continued to see and teach. And thus it is that religion came to plunge the world into gloom.

Savoir se libérer n'est rien; l'ardu, c'est savoir être libre.

Translation: To know how to free oneself is nothing; the arduous thing is to know what to do with one's freedom.